Wednesday, 17 October 2007

After a few weeks of harsh lectures..(is it? not enjoying yourself meh?) We’ve decided to go on a trip to Birmingham..a city far more better than Nottingham (any city is better than Semenyih…thought i would say Nottingham?? Dream on, at least they have Hooters here…) I struggled to wake up early in the morning..(thank god no fire alarm that night…had some sleep after some Raya open house in St. Peter’s court…and Juanda is a bloody good assassin..accused me and killed me off in the end…creepy bastard..(a game of finding the killer) The train ticket was fairly cheap though…5.55 pounds for 2 way ticket…never trust the misleading National Rail website…19 pounds….

The journey took about 1 hour and 27 minutes. When we arrived at the station in Birmingham, we tried to find the way to Bullring…a modern and huge shopping complex in Birmingham..Without knowing it, the complex is just opposite the train station.

pic: Bullring Shopping Mall

Shara is happy!!!

Our first stop in Bullring was Krispy Kreme…a godlike doughnut stall…people here would die for it…trust me..THEY WOULD DIE FOR IT..We bought a dozen and the lady at the counter presented another 4 for us (4 doughnuts..not dozens) as complimentary…so each of us had 4 original doughnut for breakfast…Shara even went to lick the icing in the box…imagine the power of Krispy Kreme!!!

After that, we went to shop around the place…Some things are cheap…and some stuff can cost up to 600 pounds…there’s a lot of rag markets around the area too…I wanted to get a katana there but a martial arts license is needed for the purchase…damn!!!

We had our godlike lunch at Wagamama (outlet in Birmingham)…aah..I craved for more Katsu curry…..We continued our shopping until late evening…and helped ourselves with some hot chocolate at Starbucks..(our seat has a nice view of the majestic Cathedral)

Before heading back to Nottingham, we went back to Krispy Kreme and bought another 2 dozens of doughnuts..(Krispy Kreme: Come...come...i know you want it....)

As for dinner, we had 70 chicken wings from Hooters (a restaurant full of hot blonde chicks serving godlike chicken wings..)

Our chicken wing meal:

Before:

After:

ps: Shara stole my chicken while I was taking photos!!!

And I was LEFT WITH THIS!!!!

Btw…the next day…we went to visit some Raya Open House…The satays and rendang were awesome!!!! and Bob…we HAVE Malaysian Food here…haha

Tuesday, 16 October 2007

Went to Raleigh Park and chilled there until 3am (wah..thought it's Shootingham there...safe ar?) ...had a free magic show from people from the magic society.....I would say there are quite good especially the spoon bending tricks and some card tricks....The best part is that they performed it right in front of me!!! (free close-up show man ) Inspired by Steve (not the money-vacuum-and-always-changing-the-ipod guy, Steve Jobs)...a pretty good Mentalist..I have decided to learn the spoon bending trick........

After the interesting show...we had some drinks (not pepsi or coke...but strong stuffs..)...Juanda KO-ed after a 50ml of Jack Daniels....poor guy...while Ben was struggling to prove that he is still sober...haha

All i can say that is i had an enjoyable day of magic tricks....Jealous?

Tuesday, 9 October 2007

Woke up as usual and went for breakfast together with Shara. We had an early class (10 am…early?) that day, and Shara felt a bit light headed (?). We had the same continental breakfast again..(the usual toast, cereals…..etc) But this time, we had an additional stuff to add to our breakfast, a freshly-baked croissant. Shara had some "brilliant" idea to make his croissant to taste even better…..that is by putting the croissant into the toast machine….and guess what? Instead of getting the "toasted", "crunchy" croissant, he got "fire" on it…yup..Shara started a fire in the toaster. The fire was big..I can see the sparks coming out from it..Luckily that "genius" didn’t trigger the fire alarm…The experienced staff used some stick and took the totally burnt croissant out from the toaster…….with some muttering in her mouth.."Who’s that idiot that put croissant in the toaster…"

After that, we had a lecture on "i-don’t-get-it-nor-understand-a-thing-at-all-Algorithm-and-data-structures"..The lecture was a nightmare…There were errors on the slides and the lecturer asked us to ignore it…wth??? Fortunately, the lecture was only 1 hour…I went to Beeston after that for my banking stuff…on my way back, i met some old local by the name, George Wilby…a bible teacher. He was asking for some translation in the confucius book..(I’m chinese…and yes i can speak and understand chinese..so stop thinking that i’m a banana even though i use English most of the time…") We chatted for a while after that…with my poor-going-to-be-average English accent…We talked about World leaders..governments….corruption..etc and of course, Christianity…….(i have some knowledge on that…thanks to Da Vinci Code..haha) He was thrilled when i told him one of my favourte captions …"There is a devil in every man’s heart"…Before we parted…he gave me a magazine titled "The WatchTower"…and his phone number…msn….etc…haha..Honestly, he’s a friendly old man.. and I really enjoyed chatting with him…HONEST!!!!

My only regrets is that he’s not a PhD research student in Christianity…otherwise i’d have joined him and get a PhD for myself…haha (Permanent Head Damage….now 34%…)

Sunday, 7 October 2007

Been busy enjoying my time here, good food, interesting people…etc. I went to The Annual Nottingham GooseFair with the usual gang and some students from Malaysia..and one big big guy (much bigger than Shara in terms of diameter) from Yemen. To my surprise, one of the female Malaysian students recognizes me, which I felt honoured by that. (Should i?…lol) The Goosefair was a really big temporary funfair. We saw some really scary rides, especially the bungee launching thing where two people will be launched to the height of 10 storeys and left there flinging…similiar like a bungee jump..just that you are going upwards…..I went to try my luck in the darts and the ring throwing game. The ring throwing game is a scam….no one can ever win anything…not even the cheapest prize as you need to get the ring 100% fit into the large boxes….(The fella of the stall sounds like a robotic as she repeats the same thing over and over again: "A-n-y-o-n-e w-a-n-t-s t-o p-l-a-y? O-n-l-y 5 p-o-u-n-d-s f-o-r-6 r-i-n-g-s....."

As for the dart throwing game, Albert went first and scored 22. According to the rules of the game, each player has 3 darts and if you score 10 points, you’ll get a small teddy bear…50.. a medium toy..and above 50..a large toy..Albert got the small cute teddy bear. I tried my luck and i got 5-3-1….9 points..The funny thing is…you’ll get a much larger version of the small teddy bear if you scored below 10..Albert was severely depressed by that…haha..and I was called a genius and skilled for that….(maybe as it is very hard to get below 10…haha)

goosefair

bungee fling & my prize teddy

The next day, I went out to Beeston with Ben, Shara and Albert. I had some spicy chinese food for lunch which reminds me a bit of malaysian food…except it's much much more oily…after that, we did some shopping there and stopped by Raleigh park where i met another 2 interesting fellows..Ben’s classmate, Justin and a postgraduate, George…both Malaysian Chinese. We had some really nice Bak Kut Teh for dinner…(Take that Nick, we don’t have to go to Klang for nice Bak Kut Teh)..After the delicious meal, we started chatting (mostly nonsense) and talked about our past experiences….tuna smell & tuna in oil…screwed up people..etc…We had some really good laughs until i was almost out of breath….

Wednesday, 3 October 2007

Wednesday, a day without lectures…bored of the food in the atrium, Shara and I decided to go for lunch in Portland building in Park Campus. Instead of taking the usual hopper bus, we took a 25 minutes (supposedly) walk through some small lanes to our destination. We used a landmark (a tall weird building) as our guide to get to park campus. Our genius idea failed miserably as we soon noticed that the landmark was actually the other building, and not the one in park campus. Having no other options, (no shortcuts or what-so-ever), we followed the route to the QMC (Queen’s Medical Centre) which is linked to the main campus. The QMC is an immensely huge building…..and yeah we got lost in it for 25 minutes until my "100% accurate intuition" lead us to the exit that links to the main campus…We saw some dead bodies (maybe…) while searching our way out in the maze…lol

After the tiring journey, we walked for another 20 minutes to reach Beeston…a nice calm, peaceful place filled with old people…did some shopping there…vodka…cakes…etc. Shara bought a bagful of nuts..(He claimed that those are healthy snacks…my ass..oops..sorry for the language)…

Before heading back to Jubilee Campus, we stopped by the sports centre and checked out the archery practice…looks interesting but i think kendo is cooler